How smiling is infectious
Yet you cannot be infected by a smile;
And it's really most bizarre
That you said you were listening
When you weren't really listening all the while;
And it's very, very odd
The Cox's Orange is an apple
And Bombay Duck a weird kind of fish;
And it's strange that girls from Herts
Are almost never tarts
While Essex girls are always Dawn or Trish;
And it's funny how we taste
A corked wine in a restaurant
And say "That's fine!" even though it's crap;
And it's strange how we embark
Upon marriage in the dark
When for other trips we take a torch and map;
Etc!
Every now and then I'm afflicted with a touch of Light Versitis - as long-standing readers of this blog will know. (If you really want more, try this and this.) I've been playing around with the above form (I know - embarrassing, isn't it!) but quickly ran out of ideas. I wonder if anyone wants to swallow their intellectual pride and take up from where I left off ..?
6 comments:
I don't know Hertfordshire that well myself, but I think this is really good.
Have you tried sticking chords to it (I can't remember if you play the guitar or not)?
Do you know any Jake Thackray? (E.g., The Frigging Brigadier?)
I play guitar in a chordal strumming kind of way - so I might give that a go. Yes, I remember JT.
I've just been to the shop and mentally added another verse on the walk back:
'It's really very queer
That Van Gogh cut off his ear
Just before he put a bullet through his chest;
Yes, it's very, very sad
That artists are so mad...
Yet it's when they're in that state they paint the best!'
I'll have to hit this light verse thing on the head at once - as it tends to become an obsession!
I can't think of extra verses for your poem as requested, but I did think of this recently:
There was an old man from Reeth
Who lost his top set of teeth.
It was all he could do
To endeavour to chew
With the ones that were left underneath.
I really like light verse...and hate this idea that it's not poetry. It can be really clever and cutting and...all sorts of things! This one reminds of Winnie the Pooh (very funny how a bear likes honey etc) and therefore the temptation to say something really bizarre and un-pooh like in it is huge. I like the 'embark/dark' bit best. Not so keen on the tarts bit...Essex girls being a bit of a tired old target, as it were.
I'd say more light verse, more, more!
Yes, the Essex girl target was a bit below the fake snake-skin belt, as it were. And almost as cheap as that cheap perfume they wear... (Only joking, any Essex girl readers out there. Though that's not likely, I know. Whoops... Sorry, SORRY! I can't help myself. Please forgive.)
The line nearly went "But Kiera Knightley is a different kind of dish" - but that would have been quite irredeemably bad.
Not much meat on her either!
x
Post a Comment